Juan Zarama Perini
A multi-million-dollar house in Oriental Bay, Wellington, is falling apart.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom house is perched above Wellington’s millionaire mile and is worth about $4 million. But even in a housing boom – and a housing crisis – 304 Oriental Parade has sat empty, turning derelict, for most of the past 17 years.
The owner seems to have no interest in it – and the neighbours are not happy. They say it’s a dangerous eyesore that is putting their own properties at risk.
Homes.co.nz estimates the property is worth $3.75m, while the Wellington City Council values it at $4.17m. All but $70,000 of that value is in the 809-square-metres of land.
Through the windows of the house, it is clear nobody has lived there for some time. The remaining spouting is hanging loose, roofing tiles are missing, the path is overgrown, weatherboards are coming up and an external cable is hanging loose.
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Paula Comerford lives next door and said roofing tiles from the dilapidated house had been landing on her cable car roof and the lack of guttering was threatening to cause slips on her land.
“It was a beautiful house,” said Comerford, who tried to buy it with her partner in 2005, then ended up building their own house next door. The couple that did buy it broke up and never moved in, she said. Apart from someone renting it for about six months it had been empty.
Juan Zarama Perini/Stuff
The interior of 304 Oriental Pde.
Property records show the house is owned by Shazwel Investments Ltd, which is owned by Sharon Scaife, also referred to as Sharon Woodley in council documents.
Comerford said every time she had approached Scaife she was told it was her ex-husband’s issue. Neither Scaife nor her ex-husband could be contacted this week, despite repeated attempts to call their cell phones and an office number.
After Comerford complained to the council in 2015, it wrote her a letter saying Building Act requirements about storm water – which she believed was running off 304 Oriental Pde and threatening neighbouring properties – could not be enforced because the house was built in about 1912.
Juan Zarama Perini/Stuff
The guttering is all but gone in the $4m-plus house.
“It was not a requirement before 1991 for a building to have storm water controls to control surface water, and therefore council cannot force the owners by legislation to replace or to upgrade the storm water controls.”
Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said the council was “well aware” of the issue and was working with the owner to address issues. It had also told neighbours of the council’s limitations, he said.
Juan Zarama Perini/Stuff
The orange-tiled roof house sits among some of Wellington’s flashest homes.
“This is principally because our inspections have shown the house is not in a condition where it can be deemed dangerous or insanitary under the Building Act,” he said. Council inspectors returned on Tuesday this week and nothing had changed since it last visited.
Terry Wellington, who lives on the eastern side of the house, said he got the council to turn the water off at the house about seven years ago because taps were leaking and the water was threatening to compromise a retaining wall on his and others’ property.
“It is getting to the state now it is going to become dangerous. No-one is going to do something, in a council sense, until there is an event,” he said, adding that he feared there would be a fire or tiles would blow off, hitting someone or damaging something.
He has no idea why the house had been bought then left unused.
Why has this $4m house on Wellington’s Oriental Parade been empty for 17 years? & Latest News Update
Why has this $4m house on Wellington’s Oriental Parade been empty for 17 years? & More Live News
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